Tuesday, November 14, 2017

MIAMI - An American Airlines flight bound for South Florida was able to land safely Tuesday after a bird slammed into the front of the plane.Flight 1498 from Mexico City was on approach to Miami International Airport at about 11 a.m. when the bird hit the nose of the Airbus A319.The plane landed and was able to taxi to the gate with no problem. No injuries were reported.While birds often hit planes during flight, what made this incident different from others was that the bird remained stuck on the plane after the hit.An American Airlines employee who spoke to Local 10 News said she had never seen anything like what happened Tuesday."It is true that we deal with bird strikes, that does happen, but never like this," said the employee, who wished to remain anonymous.Numerous airport personnel could be seen taking photos of the rare sight after the flight arrived at gate D22.Animal services was called to retrieve the dead bird from the plane.The plane was taken to maintenance to repair the damage and was replaced by another plane for future flights.In a 2016 study, the Federal Aviation Administration reported there were more than 160,000 bird strikes reported in the U.S. from 1990-2015, with the majority occurring during landing. Story and video ➤ https://www.local10.com